State financial analysis of refugee resettlement costs doesn't add up

5:10 AM,
Jan. 11, 2014

Tennessee's most concentrated refugee resettlement outside of Nashville is the Burmese population in Smyrna. The state estimates refugee costs by assuming that refugees are exactly like the average Tennessean with regard to income, TennCare use and tax remittances.

Written by

Don Barnett

Struggles over state versus federal power relations are still not settled about 225 years after the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The left and right have launched movements to alter the Constitution, with progressives tending to support change that would assign more power to the federal government, while conservatives and libertarians would give more influence to states.

Tennessee legislators established the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee for the purpose of exploring this question.

Examples of possible federal overreach of constitutional authority abound, and the ...